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EU Referendum and UK poverty

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neilbateman
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The economic consequences of Brexit are serious and will particularly affect those on lower incomes.

The pound has fallen again today and is very likely to fall further given the mess we are now in.  This of course increases the cost of imported goods such as most of our food (big business and our bent housing market having weakened agriculture by sourcing the cheapest food and selling off agricultural land for housing).  The lower one’s income, the greater the proportion of income spent on food.  In addition, inflation generally is very likely to rise at a time of frozen working age benefits.

It is also very likely that unemployment will increase significantly (I’ve heard that the Ata rescue deal is off as they can’t be sure they can access the Single Market).  each unemployed person costs directly something like £15,000 to the pubic purse in benefits spending and lost tax revenues.  This at a time of ever tighter public finances.  Result more benefit cuts before the ideologues such as BoJo and Gove get any ideas of their own.

The results are going to make anything before seem like a picnic.  Of course, such is the depth of public hysteria about national identity, immigration and other unpopular minorities(including claimants) that Leave voters are unlikely to see the cause.

Grim, dangerous times and I suggest people brush up on their reading about the rise of totalitarian regimes.

ClairemHodgson
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hah.  don’t need to brush up on that, Neil.

you’re right, of course. those who voted out as protest v cuts etc really don’t “get it” and refuse to be told…..

1964
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Spot on Neil. Scary times indeed. Deeply, deeply depressed.

Mike Hughes
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Cameron played a blinder in leaving the article 50 process to his successor. Absolute poison chalice for Boris et al. Effectively career ending. Sign it and you’re the one who actually took us out. Don’t sign it and you’re going against the will of the electorate. Go for a second referendum and there will be riots. History as it is currently written will see his biggest achievement as being the man who took a huge gamble and lost. Time will see him characterised as the man who led the government which ideologically dismantled local government and shrank the authority of all politicians in consequence.

I find it hard to talk about Labour without laughing out loud. So distant from socialism or anything vaguely left wing that they’re effectively the Tories in a different colour. Dismissive of democratic processes and obsessed with the idea that being elected is all having completely forgotten that it was the last two Blairite candidates who lost general elections. A party of neither principles nor morals who think we’ve actually forgotten that once in power they blew it big time for exactly that reason. A Labour party that cannot accept that being an effective opposition matters and which believes power is all. Sigh

So the vacumn has been created. The only question now is which opportunist will fill it.

We’re going to be an interesting social experiment for the next few years!

shawn mach
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New Shadow Work & Pensions Secretary is Debbie Abrahams following resignation yesterday of Owen Smith

1964
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Mike, blindingly well put if I may say so.

shawn mach
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Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb has officially declared that he is running to replace David Cameron as Conservative party leader.

http://www.politico.eu/article/work-and-pensions-secretary-stephen-crabb-declares-he-is-running-to-replace-david-cameron-as-conservative-party-leader/

1964
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There’s definitely a joke in there involving crabs, organs and lobster pots if only I could think of it.

Oh the delights of watching the Big Brexit House.

ClairemHodgson
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Mike Hughes - 28 June 2016 10:47 AM

Cameron played a blinder in leaving the article 50 process to his successor. Absolute poison chalice for Boris et al. Effectively career ending. Sign it and you’re the one who actually took us out. Don’t sign it and you’re going against the will of the electorate. Go for a second referendum and there will be riots. History as it is currently written will see his biggest achievement as being the man who took a huge gamble and lost. Time will see him characterised as the man who led the government which ideologically dismantled local government and shrank the authority of all politicians in consequence.

I find it hard to talk about Labour without laughing out loud. So distant from socialism or anything vaguely left wing that they’re effectively the Tories in a different colour. Dismissive of democratic processes and obsessed with the idea that being elected is all having completely forgotten that it was the last two Blairite candidates who lost general elections. A party of neither principles nor morals who think we’ve actually forgotten that once in power they blew it big time for exactly that reason. A Labour party that cannot accept that being an effective opposition matters and which believes power is all. Sigh

So the vacumn has been created. The only question now is which opportunist will fill it.

We’re going to be an interesting social experiment for the next few years!

whist agree about the current labour party, they are never helped by the fact that the vast majority of the press are again them in any form, and thus will never be able to get any sensible message out to the electorate anyway…

quite why they think that this is a good time to tear themselves apart is another matter.  to me, it only lets in the far right, since there is no credible party of the left with a hope in hell….

Mike Hughes
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I agree re: media bias but it was ever thus; hasn’t stopped them being elected decades apart and ultimately comes down to how they handle it. Generally the answer to that has been “lacking in forethought” and “consistently badly”. Their central marketing decision to take discussion of immigration off the agenda was beyond insane and has led them directly to their current precipice where I can only see a split into two parties; neither of which would then be electable. I’d love to think it started with the New Labour nonsense where if we didn’t understand the message we were to blame for not listening hard enough, but, it started long before that and has ultimately been driven by the desire for power above all else leading to the abandonment of principles, morality and direction.

At the moment it’s largely irrelevant. If you haven’t got a sensible, coherent message to get out to the electorate in the first place then you’re not really in a position to claim you’re being misrepresented in any way, shape or form. What was that Major slogan? Ah, “back to basics.” Well, indeed.

Benny Fitzpatrick
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It seems to me that no-one is currently electable. Labour in its current form for the reasons so lucidly explained by Mike in the previous post, and the Conservatives because they are at war with themselves over their own agenda and are, in the eyes of many, discredited over their “elite-centric” policies and total unconcern over growing inequality and resulting discontent.

Such is the level of disgust with our current crop of politicians that I suspect none of them would be able to claim a mandate.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Very interesting piece.

The British public have voted to leave the EU in an advisory referendum – but there have been voices in business, diplomacy, politics and European polities desperately asking if the issue can be revisited. Is that feasible?

The short answer is yes, just about, but many forces would have to align.

UK voted for Brexit – but is there a way back?

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Oh, apparently it’s older peoples’ fault that the leave campaign won the referendum, so we should now start punishing them….

It is no secret that the present level of generosity when it comes to pensioner benefits will not be sustainable in the long run. On that basis they should be trimmed today and more resources spent on enhancing economic opportunities for the young, especially given the disproportionate pain suffered by the under 30s in the years after the great crash. The threatened economic pain from Brexit merely adds to that imperative. The over 50s voted for Brexit, so they must not, as a group, be allowed to push the cost entirely onto others.

Brexit is one more example of the older generation financially bankrupting the young

BC Welfare Rights
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Mike Hughes
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All sides posturing at present. The EU and their “hurry up” and “no negotiations before you sign article 50” shtick. Ex-wife of an ex-boss of mine is an interpreter in Brussels and has sat in on meetings in the past few days she would very much describe as negotiations as have most of her colleagues.

The UK politicians pretending that someone will actually sign article 50. It’s a poison chalice and a career ender. Best guess at present is that one of two scenarios occur:

1) In practice article 50 simply won’t happen for many years and by the time it finally does we’ll be trading on terms not so different from those we trade on now and immigration won’t be shaped too differently either.

2) Article 50 gets signed within the next 3 months and then… nothing happens. Years of negotiations probably ended with us formally going back in.

I genuinely don’t see anything other than the above and for that reason I can’t froth about it in the way far too many others are. I’m more concerned on what looks like fatal fractures in both main parties. That’s the real story here for me. That will also be what impacts on approaches to poverty and the success or otherwise of the neo-liberal agenda.

nevip
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Article 50(1) states that “any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”.

As Parliament is the legislative sovereign body of the UK then it will not have “decided” to withdraw until it repeals the European Communities Act 1972, which took us into the EU in the first place.

Mike Hughes
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nevip - 29 June 2016 01:31 PM

Article 50(1) states that “any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”.

As Parliament is the legislative sovereign body of the UK then it will not have “decided” to withdraw until it repeals the European Communities Act 1972, which took us into the EU in the first place.

Even that’s not clear though yet. They’re already arguing about it and, even if it were, they’re still going to argue about it and pretty much every other aspect. But one example below.

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/06/27/nick-barber-tom-hickman-and-jeff-king-pulling-the-article-50-trigger-parliaments-indispensable-role

Happy days! :)

1964
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I’m particularly tickled today to see that even David Cameron is now apparently holding poor old Jeremy C responsible for Brexit. I wonder what else we can blame on him? The original Fall of Man possibly?

Mike Hughes
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1964 - 29 June 2016 02:58 PM

I’m particularly tickled today to see that even David Cameron is now apparently holding poor old Jeremy C responsible for Brexit. I wonder what else we can blame on him? The original Fall of Man possibly?

Jeremy Clarkson?

Well that figures :)

1964
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Chortle!

I blame that David Beckham.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Mike Hughes - 29 June 2016 02:22 PM

Even that’s not clear though yet. They’re already arguing about it and, even if it were, they’re still going to argue about it and pretty much every other aspect. But one example below.

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/06/27/nick-barber-tom-hickman-and-jeff-king-pulling-the-article-50-trigger-parliaments-indispensable-role

Happy days! :)

Blimey, that article made my head hurt.

Mike Hughes
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 29 June 2016 03:55 PM
Mike Hughes - 29 June 2016 02:22 PM

Even that’s not clear though yet. They’re already arguing about it and, even if it were, they’re still going to argue about it and pretty much every other aspect. But one example below.

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/06/27/nick-barber-tom-hickman-and-jeff-king-pulling-the-article-50-trigger-parliaments-indispensable-role

Happy days! :)

Blimey, that article made my head hurt.

I have never ever seen a better argument against 24 hour news channels. In between attending the Euros I have done nothing but watch films; read, listen to music and play my acoustic as a means of survival. What I’ll do when Wales go out and I have to reconnect with the world I have no idea.

ClairemHodgson
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1964 - 29 June 2016 02:58 PM

I’m particularly tickled today to see that even David Cameron is now apparently holding poor old Jeremy C responsible for Brexit. I wonder what else we can blame on him? The original Fall of Man possibly?

i think that’s very much a case of the cameron kettle calling the corbyn pot…..

 

ikbikb
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 29 June 2016 12:24 PM

Very interesting piece.

UK voted for Brexit – but is there a way back?

The ‘Labour Option’ is a possibility in a few years…...but only if there is a new leader…...if there is an early election…...and if Labour are at least the largest party. The common denominators being the very big ‘if’ and possibly the Jezzer factor summed up by the Clash ‘Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble An’ if I stay it will be double…..

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Long read but some interesting stuff, regardless of your views about the overarching politics.

The economistic analysis of parts of the radical left led them to back Brexit as an anti-establishment movement and ignore (or worse, deny) the reality that Leave brought together the most reactionary elements of British society including the most reactionary section of the working class. Doing so involved only focusing on the fact that a significant section of workers were backing Leave and ignoring the views of many of that section, but also the consequences of energising that vote for migrants in the UK, the vast majority of whom did not even have a vote.

Making sense of the Brexit tide of reaction and the reality of the racist vote

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Billy Durrant - 29 June 2016 12:57 PM

A blog piece from one of your colleagues on this also, Paul

https://ageukblog.org.uk/2016/06/27/it-is-wrong-and-unfair-to-denigrate-older-people-because-of-the-eu-referendum-result/

Thanks Billy, strangely starts off very similar to the last link I posted

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Very sobering piece by Frances Ryan in the Guardian.

Parker wouldn’t normally have bothered to vote – “I couldn’t really care less about the EU” – but last week he walked through a rainstorm to put his cross next to leave. His vote was not only a sign that he, like many, had no prosperous future to risk but a message to the elites that he feels have let him down.

Martin’s already lost almost everything – he voted leave to spread the pain

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Guardian report that a law firm is taking pre-emptive legal action against the government, following the EU referendum result, to try to ensure article 50 is not triggered without an act of parliament. Acting on behalf of an anonymous group of clients, solicitors at Mishcon de Reya have been in contact with government lawyers to seek assurances over the process, and plan to pursue it through the courts if they are not satisfied. The law firm has retained the services of senior constitutional barristers, including Lord Pannick QC and Rhodri Thompson QC.

Their initiative relies upon the ambiguous wording of article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which sets out how states could leave the EU. The first clause declares: “Any member state may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.” One of the grounds of a likely challenge to the referendum is that it is merely advisory and the royal prerogative cannot be used to undermine parliamentary statute.

UK government faces pre-emptive legal action over Brexit decision

ClairemHodgson
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 04 July 2016 11:29 AM

Their initiative relies upon the ambiguous wording of article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which sets out how states could leave the EU. The first clause declares: “Any member state may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.” One of the grounds of a likely challenge to the referendum is that it is merely advisory and the royal prerogative cannot be used to undermine parliamentary statute.

 

Legally, and constitutionally, I think Mishcon’s have a point.  We don’t of course have a written constitution, but our constitution is such that it is Parliament which decides laws etc. 

There’s nothing ambiguous, I don’t think, about the Treaty phrase “in accordance with its own constitution”.  It is clear, in fact, that any such decision must comply with the constitution of the country thinking about leaving.  And that clearly has to be right, whichever country you are in and thinking about leaving.

So one can argue tat the current situation may turn into a constitutional crisis.

Interesting example from Switzerland.  Granted they’re not in the EU, but they are in the EEA.  they having binding referendums on very important topics (with minimum majority provisions).  they recently voted in a referendum to restrict immigration, and it’s buggering up their position vis a vis the EEA….

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/03/eu-swiss-single-market-access-no-free-movement-citizens

Jon (CANY)
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Interesting blog piece here by some of the Mishcon lawyers involved..
https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/06/27/nick-barber-tom-hickman-and-jeff-king-pulling-the-article-50-trigger-parliaments-indispensable-role/

also worth reading the comments, if you have the time.